One evening three weeks ago, I made a life-changing decision that would’ve been inconceivable to me that very same morning. I decided to quit drinking for life.

The next night, I had my last drinking hurrah: my last glass of red wine with pasta (WTF?!) at my fave Italian restaurant, followed by my last six-pack ever (double WTF?!) at home cranking my favorite head-banging jams. It was the victory lap of my life’s drinking games—a conscious, intentional, relatively graceful exit. Done!

The next day, I started over. I meditated on a future life undistorted by alcohol and my well-lubricated past. I was simultaneously relieved that I hadn’t faced worse consequences before changing my habits and terrified that my life would be one long, boring crucible.

Drinking quelled my loneliness and pulled me out of a few dark spots. In the long run, though, it perpetuated the issues I used it to escape from.

Let’s cut to the chase: I know how to get down. I know how to take the party to the next level, and I’m often the last man standing—usually with an epic adventure story to take with me.

Once I got past the binge-drinking phase in high school, I handled alcohol better—to some extent. I was what I considered to be a relatively functional adult. But when I got a DUI at 30, I knew I had to seriously reel it in. So, I did.

Until recently, I’d typically have three glasses of pinot noir with dinner, usually by myself, punctuated by a few nights I started with a beer.

Wine and beer were my drama-free friends, always there to ease my anxiety—especially when I was totally isolated, in tunnel-vision mode to start my company.

Drinking worked to quell the loneliness and pulled me out of a few dark spots. In the long run, though, it perpetuated the issues I used it to escape from, and I knew if I kept up the way I’d been going, it would take a serious toll on my health.

But I continued to cling to the idea that I could achieve my wildest professional dreams and live life to the fullest, while moderately and healthily drinking.

Then I had the conversation that changed everything. I unloaded on an employee named Roy (an old Krishna hippie) about my stalled ambitions for the company I'd started. His response hit me like a ton of bricks.

“I know you don’t like to hear it, but you’ll never get to the higher realms of the spiritual world with iZO Cleanse if you are tethered to alcohol as a vice. It’s a low-vibration substance that contaminates your purity and automatically disqualifies you from ascending to the higher realms of spirituality.”

The fact that I had to make a choice was suddenly totally clear. I could stop drinking and keep evolving toward my highest self, or I could keep drinking and consciously limit myself and my achievements in this lifetime. When I saw it that way, it really wasn’t a tough decision to make. Alcohol had to go.

Three weeks later, I haven’t missed it one bit. I’ve been in liquor-laden environments, like dinner dates and rock concerts, and not experienced so much as a pang of longing. My fear that life wouldn’t be as much fun has already transitioned into gratitude and appreciation for how present, clear, and focused I feel.

These are the seven major positive changes I’ve experienced since I got sober:

4. I have kept up my daily yoga and meditation practices and plan to start running daily as well.

5. I’ve finally been able to release the self-judgment I cultivated through years of hypocrisy in my mission to promote health and detoxification.

6. I have much stronger focus, which means I get much more done. When I was drinking, there was no time for writing because my short-term memory was shot, and I spent my mornings recovering from the night before.